Immigration Policy Center: MIPEX USA Factsheet

MIPEX USA partner, the Immigration Policy Center, publishes a MIPEX factsheet for the US:
Integration is an often overlooked but key component of U.S. immigration policy. Successful integration of immigrants fuels their success, strengthens communities, and builds bridges between newcomers and other community members. Time and again, the influx of immigrants into a community has been shown to reverse economic decline and breathe new life into urban areas, small towns, and rural communities. Moreover, integration can be a key to entrepreneurship and future economic growth. For example, research by Richard Florida and Charlotta Mellander found that nations which focus more on immigrant integration have higher levels of economic competitiveness, are more innovative, and have higher rates of entrepreneurship. Understanding how federal and state laws facilitate or hinder integration is therefore an important component of setting integration policy.
Last year, the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) was invited to become the U.S. partner for a major international comparative study of integration laws across Europe, Canada, and the United States. Now in its third edition, the Migrant Integration Policy Index, or MIPEX, is a reference guide and tool which measures and compares the immigration and integration policies of 31 countries.  After a year of collaboration and analysis, the MIPEX results found that the U.S. ranked 9th overall, receiving 62 of a total possible 100 points. This overall ranking is good, especially when the lack of a national integration policy is taken into account. Unpacking the meaning of this score, however, demonstrates that the United States can and should think much more carefully about how we welcome and encourage new immigrants.
This fact sheet provides a basic introduction to MIPEX, assesses the U.S. ratings, and uses the interactive features of the MIPEX tool to speculate on how changes to our immigration laws might affect the MIPEX score. Armed with this information, MIPEX provides an excellent starting point for a much deeper conversation about the ripple effect of our immigration laws on legal immigrants and the need to think much more strategically about our legal immigration process....
Read the factsheet in full on the Immigration Policy Center website
Published On: Mon, May 09, 2011 | Download File